Jeremy Lin had little interest Thursday in talking about the 2013 NBA All-Star Game. Rockets owner Les Alexander also wasn’t interested in discussing his new guard’s potential appearance in the showcase event next Feb. 17 at Toyota Center, but in China, plenty of votes are waiting to be cast.

If the Yao Ming era was any indication, the Rockets might want to plan for Linsanity at Toyota Center during the 62nd NBA All-Star Game.

Lin, a Taiwanese-American, might not have the following Yao had in China, but he’s likely to benefit from the ballot stuffing that put Yao in the All-Star Game in all eight seasons of his Rockets career.

Whether he was healthy, injured or even worthy of starting, Yao always came out on top in the balloting with a huge boost from online votes in his native China, beginning with his rookie campaign, when he eclipsed the more established Shaquille O’Neal, and ending with his injury-shortened 2010-11 campaign.

Center stage on Feb. 17?

For now, Lin is merely hoping to establish himself after his brief breakout with the New York Knicks.

“I want to continue to get better,” Lin said. “I never want to be as good or worse as the previous season. That’s my goal: to continue to get better. I don’t know what my ceiling is. I don’t know what my potential is. But it’s my goal to find out.”

Barring an injury, Lin has a good chance of being at center stage on Feb. 17, just as Yao was a focal point entering the 2006 All-Star Game in Houston.

LeBron James may have finished as the MVP of the 2006 game, but Yao led all players in votes with 2,342,738.

“The one thing that’s going to be different from year one in 2002 when Yao first got here, fans just voted him in because he’s Yao Ming,” said Andy Yao, a Taiwan native who worked with Yao for the Rockets from 2002-11. “Now at this stage, a lot of what they call ‘Yao-only fans,’ they’ve become NBA fans. They know what’s good and what’s bad. I’m sure there will be fans that just vote for him because he’s Chinese, but also people are going to judge from his on-court performance. If he does well, of course they’re going to vote for him. If he does terrible, I don’t think they’ll vote him in.”

‘People are crazy’

Two days after the Knicks refused to match the Rockets’ $25.1 million offer sheet for the point guard, Lin’s All-Star candidacy may have started in China and in Houston’s Asian communities.

“Actually, for right now, the Chinese community is crazy,” said Tiffany T. Zhang, a reporter for a local Chinese television station. “We used to have Yao’s fan club. Now we’re starting Jeremy Lin’s fan club, Jeremy’s international fan club, Jeremy Lin’s Back to the Rockets fan club.

“People are crazy. Now we’re following Jeremy Lin, so information right now if you go online in China, everything is about Jeremy Lin.”